Important New Paper!

On Wednesday, October 24, 2012 9:23:21 PM UTC-5, Robert L. Oldershaw wrote:
On Wednesday, October 24, 2012 5:15:43 PM UTC-4, wrote:
That's also part of science,
sir.
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I would be interested in discussing:

.....and why would anyone else be interested in discussing it with you, given how you ignored Craig's entire post? Or how you have completely ignored and sidestepped every technical refutation of your claims for the past few years?

I am continually mystified why you keep seeking audience with those whom you do not respect.

Robert, do you have any response to any of the technical failures of your claims?

For example, if you want to keep advocating that dark matter halos are populated with black holes shouldn't you at some point address the evidence against it?

1. whether or not a MWG halo population(s) could explain the results presented in the paper that is the topic of this thread,

*waves hands*

Magic!

Need we remind you that this is your theory? If you don't have any idea of what we would see were your numerology be true, it is not clear to me what it is you hope to accomplish. Nobody is doing your research for you.

and
2. if the population(s) are extragalactic and emitted their radiation in the early universe, what properties would they need to have,

This has already been discussed in the paper. Perhaps you should read it again?

and
3. are there completely different explanations for the observed phenomena,

Yeah.

They are discussed....in the paper. Perhaps you should read it again?

and
4. Could one model explain both the ARCADE-2 and the new X-ray/IR results?

I don't know, Robert. Can you provide us the results of your analysis that shows a correlation between the two datasets?

I assume you have such a thing.

Don't you?

Let's discuss the science and implications of this particular paper, and skip all the low-road posturing that has dominated the discussion so far.
Possible, or not?

Do *YOU* have any evidence that *YOUR* claims that the results can be explained by objects local to the Milky Way. Any evidence at all?

Please note the various microlensing survey counterarguments, eg OGLE and whatnot.

Further, please note that it isn't up to us to make your failed numerology function.

Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

On Wednesday, October 24, 2012 10:23:21 PM UTC-4, Robert L. Oldershaw wrote:
On Wednesday, October 24, 2012 5:15:43 PM UTC-4, wrote:
That's also part of science,
sir.

I would be interested in discussing:

It seems that it is OK for you to rail against another contributor to the newsgroup, and yet you do not tolerate the same in return? How is that OK?

Do you now accept that the CXB is essentially accounted for?

1. whether or not a MWG halo population(s) could explain the results presented in the paper that is the topic of this thread,

They cannot. Martin Hardcastle did a really nice analysis of your proposed halo sources on July 15th, but you essentially ignored the technical points he raised. Your only relevant comments were that you would "agree to disagree" with Hardcastle, and were "unwilling to concede" any of your points, but you presented absolutely zero technical rebuttal to Hardcastle's work.[*]

Why do you expect the newsgroup members to provide analysis if you ignore it? Hardcastle showed two things: one is that even with extremely generous assumptions in your favor, the amount of accretion luminosity for low mass black holes in the halo is far below the amount you predicted. He also showed that the ARCADE population cannot be explained by your mechanism and still be self-consistent.

2. if the population(s) are extragalactic and emitted their radiation in the early universe, what properties would they need to have,

Why don't you consult section 4.2 of the Cappelluti paper you referred to? It discusses some of these matters.

3. are there completely different explanations for the observed phenomena,
4. Could one model explain both the ARCADE-2 and the new X-ray/IR results?

Why don't you do a systematic review of the literature since the ARCADE results (not just a few papers) and report back your findings?

CM
[*] Well that's not totally true. You also mentioned pulsars as an analogy, but did not provide any technical analysis to show how it was relevant or plausible.

On Wednesday, October 24, 2012 10:29:41 PM UTC-4, Eric Gisse wrote:



"Mod. note: this 'opposing hypothesis' is conclusively falsified by
observation. See e.g. the analysis of Hickox & Markevitch
(http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007ApJ...661L.117H) who show that,
after excluding all sources resolved by Chandra, together with the
contribution from individually undetected optical/IR sources, from the
deepest X-ray fields, the remaining soft X-ray background is
consistent with zero -- there is no diffuse X-ray background left.
-- mjh"
----------------------------------------------------------------

1. The issue was not whether the background was "diffuse" or due to point sources.

2. In today's arXiv.org: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.6377

Title: Spectrum of the unresolved cosmic X ray background: what is
unresolved 50 years after its discovery.

Authors: Moretti et al.

Conclusions: "We exploited the low and predictable instrument background of
the Swift XRT telescope to perform the spectroscopy of the unresolved
X-ray emission in the CDF-S. We found a faint, but
significant unresolved component that can be modeled by a very
hard power-law with photon index ?=0.1 0.7 and a flux density
of 5 10?12 erg s?1 cm?2 deg?2 in the 2.0-10. keV band,
corresponding to 20% of the total CXRB. With respect to previous
works we significantly improved the accuracy over the
1.5-7.0 keV band. Our measure is in very good agreement with
what is expected by the G07 AGN population model in the 1.5-
3.0 keV. In the hard band (3-7 keV) the same model falls short
when replicating the observed spectrum, pointing toward some
missing very hard sources. This discrepancy can be solved hypothesizing
a positive evolution with redshift of the contribution
Compton-thick AGN population.

[Mod. note: non-ASCII characters removed, please post in plain ASCII
only. The distinction to bear in mind here is that between the 'soft
X-ray background' and the 'X-ray background' in general. -- mjh]

3. Some recent contributors to this thread seem to act like they are on the Dr. Phil TV show. I repeat that I am only interested in discussing science objectively.

RLO
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

[mod. note: quoted text trimmed -- mjh]

On Thursday, October 25, 2012 7:28:42 PM UTC-5, Robert L. Oldershaw wrote:
1. The issue was not whether the background was "diffuse" or due to point sources.

Sure it is.

Background that cannot be resolved is unresolvable background. Resolving the background to point sources means we know where the x-ray background is coming from.

There is not a whole lot of luminosity at any particular energy level that is not resolvable. If you wish to argue that what is observed is predicted by your numerology you will need to actually make the argument with mathematics rather than hand waving.

2. In today's arXiv.org: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.6377
Title: Spectrum of the unresolved cosmic X ray background: what is
unresolved 50 years after its discovery.
Authors: Moretti et al.
Conclusions: "We exploited the low and predictable instrument background of
the Swift XRT telescope to perform the spectroscopy of the unresolved
X-ray emission in the CDF-S. We found a faint, but
significant unresolved component that can be modeled by a very
hard power-law with photon index ?=0.1 0.7 and a flux density
of 5 10?12 erg s?1 cm?2 deg?2 in the 2.0-10. keV band,
corresponding to 20% of the total CXRB. With respect to previous
works we significantly improved the accuracy over the
1.5-7.0 keV band. Our measure is in very good agreement with
what is expected by the G07 AGN population model in the 1.5-
3.0 keV. In the hard band (3-7 keV) the same model falls short
when replicating the observed spectrum, pointing toward some
missing very hard sources. This discrepancy can be solved hypothesizing
a positive evolution with redshift of the contribution
Compton-thick AGN population.

So there's a nonzero abundance of higher energy x-rays that have not yet been resolved and can't be explained by modeling. I'm sure this is interesting to someone, I suppose.

Can you detail how you feel this is relevant? These are not local sources.

3. Some recent contributors to this thread seem to act like they are on the Dr. Phil TV show. I repeat that I am only interested in discussing science objectively.

Then could you please respond to the many technical criticisms of your claims that have been brought up?

For example:

https://groups.google.com/group/sci....di rect&pli=1

You posited your black holes were the source of the ARCADE-2 radio excess. This claim was wholly demolished by Martin, however you have literally no argument against it.

When are we going to get the proclaimed scientific objectivity you keep talking about?

We are not going to forget your previous claims just because you shotgun out a few new posts and pretending the old discussions don't exist.

On Saturday, October 27, 2012 1:48:09 PM UTC-4, Eric Gisse wrote:
[mod. note: quoted text trimmed -- mjh]

Sure

-------------------------------------------------------

Those who are actually interested in the low-luminosity X-ray sources that populate the Milky Way Galaxy and may constitute the galactic dark matter, as predicted definitively by Discrete Scale Relativity, might want to look at this paper from Friday's arXiv.org crop.

Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.6808

Title: XMM-Newton observations of the Galactic Centre Region - I: The distribution of low-luminosity X-ray sources

Authors: V. Heard and R.S. Warwick

Unresolved point sources with L(X) 10^33 erg/sec

2-10 keV X-ray emissivity ~ 10^28 erg/sec/solar mass

The density of the predicted (by DSR) black hole population is low in the Galactic center, but they are easier to detect there due to more accretion and interactions.

If Cooray et al are right about the CIB, and Cappelluti et al are right about the cross-correlation of the CIB and X-ray background, then the Galactic DM halo would appear to have a substantial low-luminosity X-ray population.

I like the empirical trends. I still think NuSTAR can and will make a breakthrough discovery about the Galactic black hole population.

It is pointless to argue with true-believers or true-deniers. I am willing to discuss all related issues (regarding DM predictions) with any and all who show by their actions that they open-minded, respect scientific principles, and are willing to reevaluate their thinking when persuaded by evidence.

Scientific analogues of Rush Limbaugh (Ann Coulter?) may bark on as long as they like, but I will continue to ignore them. They are entitled to their opinions, but I am not obliged to respond to hostile and/or dogmatic posts.

Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

On Sunday, October 28, 2012 1:51:06 AM UTC-4, Robert L. Oldershaw wrote:
Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.6808
Title: XMM-Newton observations of the Galactic Centre Region - I: The distribution of low-luminosity X-ray sources
Authors: V. Heard and R.S. Warwick

Unresolved point sources with L(X) 10^33 erg/sec
2-10 keV X-ray emissivity ~ 10^28 erg/sec/solar mass

The density of the predicted (by DSR) black hole population is low in the Galactic center, but they are easier to detect there due to more accretion and interactions.

On the basis of what?

If Cooray et al are right about the CIB, and Cappelluti et al are right about the cross-correlation of the CIB and X-ray background, then the Galactic DM halo would appear to have a substantial low-luminosity X-ray population.

Unlikely. The Heard & Warwick paper concerns the galactic center region. The galactic center, bulge, ridge, etc. are dominated by stars, and the evolution endpoints of stars, namely white dwarfs, neutron stars, and yes, some black holes. These end products are predicted by stellar evolution models. Observationally, perhaps even better papers to refer to would be Chandra papers by Wang et al and Muno et al. Chandra has better power to resolve individual sources, which are primarily white dwarfs.

The Heard & Warwick paper you refer to shows that the X-ray spectrum is consistent primarily with a canonical white dwarf X-ray spectrum. By contrast, dark matter halos and outskirts of galaxies are precisely where stars are *not*, and thus there will be far fewer of these endpoint objects as well.

I like the empirical trends. I still think NuSTAR can and will make a breakthrough discovery about the Galactic black hole population.

As noted before, NuSTAR does not have the sensitivity to detect the objects you are "predicting." (Lx ~ 10^27-10^31 erg/s) On the basis of what evidence are you claiming so?

CM